'training' - (may I call you that? I feel that, through this exchange of
emails, we've become, if not close friends, then at least intimate
enough to call each other by our first names) - what do you mean by
"open"? If you're trying to see what the content is, then there are
plenty of viewers: you could use 'bvi' to see the all the ASCII bits
including their addresses; 'vi -r' or any other editor that does not
"interpret" the content but just shows it to you; 'view', 'less',
'more', etc. to just see what's inside without any danger of overwriting
it; 'strings' (perhaps with the '-a' option) to see only the
human-readable strings in the file, and so on. Heck, you could even use
your favorite browser if you don't mind a bit of distortion.

On the other hand, if you wanted to execute it - well, there's 'dosemu'
for programs that output only to the DOS console, and 'wine', as Thomas
mentioned, for the simpler GUI apps. If, however, it is the standard
modern virus-loaded, spyware-installing, system-backdoor-creating
Wind0ws program... well, I'm afraid that we can't help you; you'd need
an actual, gin-u-wine (that is, not 'wine') Wind0ws OS to experience
its full functionality. Linux kernels are really hard to convince that
they should accept a virus, and I'm afraid I don't even know of any
patches that could remedy the situation.

(Often, considering whether a Wind0ws application needs to be run on a
Linux system _at all_ leads to interesting conclusions (like "NO".)
Perhaps that's something you may want to think about.

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 09:01:38AM +0000, Thomas Adam wrote:
> > On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:25:23 +0530
> > training <training at iconitservices.com> wrote:
> >
> > > dear sir,
> > >
> > > how can i open and .exe files in redhat linux.
> >
> > You don't natively. Instead, you might use something like 'wine'.
>
> 'training' - (may I call you that? I feel that, through this exchange of
> emails, we've become, if not close friends, then at least intimate
> enough to call each other by our first names) - what do you mean by
> "open"? If you're trying to see what the content is, then there are
> plenty of viewers: you could use 'bvi' to see the all the ASCII bits
> including their addresses; 'vi -r' or any other editor that does not
> "interpret" the content but just shows it to you; 'view', 'less',
> 'more', etc. to just see what's inside without any danger of overwriting
> it; 'strings' (perhaps with the '-a' option) to see only the
> human-readable strings in the file, and so on. Heck, you could even use
> your favorite browser if you don't mind a bit of distortion.

All playful discussion of raw byte dumps aside, you probably, as Thomas
mentions, are looking for wine: http://www.winehq.com/

> On the other hand, if you wanted to execute it - well, there's 'dosemu'
> for programs that output only to the DOS console, and 'wine', as Thomas
> mentioned, for the simpler GUI apps.

dosemu is for DOS executables; there's a difference between a DOS
executable and a windows executable that happens to produce console
output. dosemu cannot run the latter.

However, with xdosemu, dosemu can emulate a (S)VGA card, allowing you
to run graphical DOS applications. Or you can run dosemu as a privileged
user (preferably via sudo), cross your fingers, and allow dosemu to
access your video card directly. (!) Not for the faint of heart or those
who don't like hardware lockups because program X doesn't like video
card Y, but it is much faster than having to emulate a video card.

> On the other hand, if you wanted to execute it - well, there's 'dosemu'
> for programs that output only to the DOS console, and 'wine', as Thomas
> mentioned, for the simpler GUI apps.

Wine should be able to run most things, not just simple programs. It
might need some DLLs from a real installation of Windows
(http://www.dll-files.com/ should help), and it might not run without
errors, but it should be able to handle most programs.

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 11:59:16AM -0400, Ben Okopnik wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, if you wanted to execute it - well, there's 'dosemu'
> > for programs that output only to the DOS console, and 'wine', as Thomas
> > mentioned, for the simpler GUI apps.
>
> dosemu is for DOS executables; there's a difference between a DOS
> executable and a windows executable that happens to produce console
> output. dosemu cannot run the latter.

You're right, of course; that's a class of applications that I'd
forgotten to mention.

> On 16/03/07, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:
> > On the other hand, if you wanted to execute it - well, there's 'dosemu'
> > for programs that output only to the DOS console, and 'wine', as Thomas
> > mentioned, for the simpler GUI apps.
>
> Wine should be able to run most things, not just simple programs. It
> might need some DLLs from a real installation of Windows
> (http://www.dll-files.com/ should help), and it might not run without
> errors, but it should be able to handle most programs.

My experience with Wine is relatively minimal; essentially, I've used it
to "install" Wind0ws programs that contain some file I need, copy the
file, delete the installation, and go on my merry way. Essentially, a
fancy GUI-fied version of 'tar xvf'. Over time, I've noted that it's
become less buggy and more prone to actually work - but it's always an
"exciting" (read "hit or miss") experience, especially with the more
complex programs. I'm almost certain that you're right, though - it's
most likely due to my not having all the necessary DLLS.